NMCI's director, Rear Adm. Charles Munns, learned of the decision this morning during a meeting with Defense CIO John P. Stenbit and Michael W. Wynne, principal deputy undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

'I think we achieved a significant milestone,' Munns said during a briefing at the program executive office in Arlington, Va. 'We're now going from a pilot phase to a rollout phase.' Munns attributed the DOD approval to the 'many laborious hours' invested by sailors at the three initial sites.

'They were the brave souls to go first,' he said.

The next step will be to cut over 20,000 of the 100,000 new seats at nine sites to EDS before July, Munns said. The seats will be ready for contractor testing in July or August, he said. NMCI eventually will consolidate 200 networks into an intranet linking more than 400,000 sailors at sea and ashore.